Thursday, 13 November 2008

I am sure you guys remember my assertion that natural dyers love natural media because we see colour differently than other people. At least you should since I only posted that a month ago and I don't think dementia is setting in for any of you yet.

Anyway to test the theory, I found a cool little colour IQ test. Because it is a hue gradation the colour of one's screen shouldn't affect it.

So I scored a goose egg. However that happens to be a perfect score. I did it again more quickly and scored an unfortunate four (that would be two switched around)-probably could have gotten another zero if I had done it more carefully. So I have almost perfect colour recognition-this is grist for the mill of my theory.

Monday, 10 November 2008

So Stan is doing memes again. This one involves finding the nearest book, going to page 123, going to the fifth sentence on that page and finally posting the three succeeding sentences. Here is my first go at it.

Hume took Locke's theory of meaning as his point of departure, and drew conclusions which were at once more radical and more disturbing than those of Berkeley.

As already noted, Hume presented his philosophy as though it began from a natural science of the human mind, being the results of observations which could be confirmed by his readers by direct introspection. He distingushed among the contents of the mind 'impressions' and 'ideas'.

Roger Scruton A Short History of Modern Philosophy

I would like it if it was something other than philosophy. Hume gave Scots such a bad name and we don't like to talk about it. He probably didn't wear a kilt either that nancyboy. So I am going to pick the next one in the bookshelf that I like better than philosophy (that is most things that are not math).

The knight urges his horse and comes to the mound,alights nimbly, and makes fast to a treeThe reigns and his noble steed with a rough branch.Then he goes to the mound and walks around it.Wondering to himself what it could be.It had a hole at the end and on either side,And was covered all over with patches of grass,And was hollow inside; nothing but an old cave,Or a fissure in an old rock: What to call it he could hardly tell.

The thing is the format of the book (which I like very much) puts on pg 123 the (dull but totally readable) modern English translation of the original on page 122:

The knyght kachez his caple and com to the lawe,Lightez doun lufyly and at a lynde tachez The rayne and his riche with a roghe braunche.Thenne he bowez to the berwe, about hit he walkezDebatande with hymself quat hit be myght.Hit had a hole on the ende and on ayther syde,And overgrowen with grasse in glodes aywhere,Abd al watz holw inwith, nobot an olde cave,Or a crevisse of an olde cragge, he couthe hit noght deme with spelle.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

I am sure mem must love this work because mem loves alliteration and such a masterpiece of it would not have escaped his notice. Also mem likes JRR Tolkien junk and I know he did a version of it which was, predictably, not as good as the original. For that I think mem must do the meme.